Warm Up
by onedaytoday
Summary: Pritkin and Cassie share one of those moments in the training salle. This is the same short scene as told from both Pritkin's and Cassie's POV.
1. Chapter 1  His

I wanted to experiment with writing the same scene from the POV of two different characters.

"Warm Up - His" is from Pritkin's POV. As you might guess, "Warm Up - Hers" will be from Cassie's.

The action happens shortly after _Curse the Dawn_. All of the characters and the fascinating world they live in are the property of Karen Chance. I'm just grateful to borrow them once in a while!

* * *

**Warm Up - His**

Pritkin left the training salle without looking back. He had left Cassie there. Supposedly still working on the warm up exercises he had been putting her through, though he was sure she had stopped as soon as he was gone. He dragged a hand through his hair. Fuck. She was torturing him and didn't even know it.

Instead of her normal baggy sweatpants and faded T-shirt, she had showed up for their session in what passed for workout wear in this century, but which he couldn't stop thinking of as underwear. Tiny black Lycra shorts stopped well shy of her navel. A black workout halter top exposed her midriff, and really, she might as well have been wearing a thong and a push-up bra. And hadn't that been the worst thought ever to be playing in his mind as he had fought to keep his body under control.

They had been working through simple yoga poses. He had placed his hands on her hips to correct her posture, when her scent, the clean citrus smell that was Cassie, had surrounded him. Suddenly he had been painfully aware of how her slim hips narrowed to an even smaller waste. His hands had slid around that waste without any conscience thought on his part. Cassie didn't seem to notice when his fingers brushed against the soft satin of her bare skin. But touching her skin had been enough to flood his memories with the images and sensations from their... emergency of only a few days ago.

But still, he had kept things under control. Until she had turned sharply in his hands and tripped over his foot.

It had been an automatic reaction to steady her by tightening his arms and drawing her to himself. That had been a mistake. He had become acutely aware of how perfect it felt to have her voluptuous little body pressed against his own.

She had looked up with those clear blue eyes, her full pink lips parted in surprise. When the tip of a little pink tongue ran over her bottom lip, he had almost groaned out loud. He had wanted nothing more than to follow its path with his own, to claim her mouth, to trail kisses down her neck until she was moaning under him. Instead, he had firmly pushed her back and took a step back himself.

"Careful," he had said. He hadn't known if he was talking about her balance or the dangers of getting too close to him. His incubus nature could feel her attraction to him and it was driving him mad.

"Mmm...hmm," she had mumbled and looked at him strangely. Her eyes had kept straying to his face, but she avoided making eye contact. He reminded himself that she was young, inexperienced. Her whole life had been tossed sideways. He had saved her life; she had saved his. It was only natural that she would feel something towards him. Those feelings would disappear once the current crises in her life had passed. She might want him now, but she didn't _need_ him.

His want had long since transformed to need, to a desperate hunger for her body, for _her. _

He was wearing sweatpants and had been getting harder with each moment he was near her. It was clear he had to get the hell out of there before the evidence of what she was doing to him became embarrassingly obvious.

"Practice that last pose. Repeat it three times and then complete the last sequence." He had been almost to the door before her impatient voice had interrupted his exit.

"Hey! Where are you going?"

He knew his voice had been strained when he barked out, "I'll be back shortly. We'll go running when I return." Then he had gotten his ass out of there. He had faced demons and dark mages with less panic than what he had felt looking into her confused blue eyes.

At least confusion was better than horror, which is what she would feel if she ever knew just how scaldingly cold a shower it took to combat her affect on him.


	2. Chapter 2  Hers

And now it's Cassie's turn.

**A/N:** Thanks to SynethesiaTastesGrey and Trisha for noting my big goof of mixing up the names of Alphonse and Augustine!

Alphonse - big, burly he-man.

Augustine - diva dress designer.

Now that my embarrassment is wearing off, I have to admit my warped sense of humor got a kick out of picturing the look of horror on Alphonse's face if he were suddenly transported to a fabric store. Though I shudder to think what he could do to his opponents armed with only a pair of pinking shears.

* * *

**Warm Up – Hers**

It had seemed like a good idea when I had found the boxes from Augustine tucked into the back of the closet at my room at Dante's. They were Sal's last gift to me. Even though in the end she had joined the long list of people trying to kill me, she had also been one of the few people I had considered a friend. Always conscious of my appearance, she had apparently made a few more purchases before she died in the hopes that I might not embarrass her in front of Mircea's vampires and the other Senate members.

She had known she couldn't stop my workouts with Pritkin, but heck if she hadn't wanted to make sure I looked my sweaty best when he put me through one of his training sessions from Hell. The Cassie I saw staring back at me in the full-length mirrors of the training salle was seriously regretting the impulse that had made me pass up my comfortable sweats this morning for my current outfit.

It had looked fine when I had first put it on, but now that I was actually exercising in it? Seriously, I think some of the showgirls performing nightly at Dante's wore more. The neckline had _not_ been this revealing when I had left my room a little while ago.

I tried to discretely tug down my shorts when Pritkin wasn't looking. I suspected one of Augustine's charms was at work, gradually morphing my workout wear into underwear. For hookers. If I survived Pritkin's tortures, I swore Augustine was going to be a dead man. This was the last time the designer would humiliate me.

Pritkin was trying to teach me yoga. He hadn't said anything about what I was wearing, but from the way he'd been frowning since I showed up, I knew he didn't approve. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that if it didn't have lots of places for concealing weapons, nothing I wore would meet with his approval. He was saying something about core strength and flexibility, but all I could concentrate on was watching out for what my outfit was going to try next.

So I wasn't ready when his hands reached out and cupped my hips to correct my posture. He had not been this close to me since our recent la-la-la-not-having-sex-here episode, and suddenly I could feel the energy crackling around us. The touch of his large hands, gentle against my bare skin, brought the memories of just what those hands could do rushing back. My face flaming, I tried to jerk away. Instead, I found myself tripping over his foot and falling into his arms.

I wanted to make a joke about my own clumsiness, anything to mask the attraction to him that flooded my body, but I couldn't get the words out past my suddenly dry lips. When had I come to crave the feel of his arms around me, the thrill of all that hard strength carefully held in check? He was frowning, his lips set in a pinched line. I wanted to kiss those lips until they opened and he kissed me back with all the passion I knew he was capable of. I felt a little lost when instead he set me back on my feet and backed away.

"Careful," he finally growled. Hopefully, he was talking about how clumsy I always seemed to be around him. Pritkin didn't make passes. He would be horrified if he knew how close I had just come to throwing myself at him.

* * *

This was a writing exercise, so please don't hesitate to leave critical comments!


End file.
